CHAPTER 1: ERROR 404 - LIFE NOT FOUND
The last thing I felt was the searing kiss of flames across my back.
I'd been stupid. So, so stupid.
One minute, I was making my usual late-night delivery run for Speedy Snacks, my beat-up scooter puttering through the neon-soaked alleys of downtown. The next, I heard a scream—the kind that slices through your bones.
A woman in a torn lab coat sprinted past me, her face a mask of pure terror. Behind her, a guy in a black tactical mask leveled what looked like a fucking flamethrower at her back.
"Hand over the prototype, Dr. Voss!" he snarled.
My body moved before my brain could catch up.
I gunned the scooter straight at him.
The impact knocked us both to the pavement. The flamethrower skidded away, and I scrambled for it—
BANG.
Not the flamethrower. A gunshot.
The masked guy had a backup piece. The bullet tore through my shoulder, spinning me around. I crashed into a stack of plastic crates, my vision swimming with black spots.
Dr. Voss screamed my name. Or maybe she didn't. Everything was muffled, like I was underwater.
The masked guy stood over me, his weapon raised.
Then—
BOOM.
The world erupted in orange.
Turned out, the flamethrower had landed next to a leaking gas line.
The explosion lifted me off the ground. For one surreal second, I was flying, weightless, watching the fire bloom beneath me like some fucked-up flower.
Then the pain hit.
It wasn't like the movies. There was no slow fade, no dramatic last words. Just agony, white-hot and all-consuming, searing through every nerve ending.
I smelled burning hair. My own.
My vision tunneled. The last thing I saw was Dr. Voss's horrified face, her mouth stretched in a scream I couldn't hear.
Then—
Nothing.
THE AFTERLIFE (AKA GOD'S DEBUG MENU)Cold.
That was the first thing I noticed. Not the good kind of cold, like AC on a summer day. The empty kind. The kind that settles in your bones and whispers, You're not supposed to be here.
I tried to move. No body.
I tried to scream. No voice.
Just... awareness. Floating in a void dotted with flickering neon code, like someone's half-finished video game.
Then she appeared.
A throne materialized in front of me—a jagged, glitching thing stitched together from broken TV screens. Lounging on it was a girl who looked like she'd been designed by a committee of edgy teen hackers.
Neon-blue hair in a messy bun. Golden eyes that flickered with pixelated static. A cropped hoodie that read "DON'T @ ME" in glowing text.
She scrolled a holographic tablet, her lips pursed.
"Finn Carter," she said, her voice equal parts amused and annoyed. "Age nineteen. Cause of death: Heroic Idiocy, Grade A+." She snorted. "Classic."
I tried to speak. My voice came out a broken glitch. "Wh—at the f—uck?"
The girl—Zara, my brain supplied, though I had no idea how I knew that—rolled her eyes. "Relax, meatbag. You're in the Afterlife Debug Room." She kicked her boots up on a floating keyboard. "I'm Zara. Goddess of Glitches, Fixer of Cosmic Oopsies, and—" She sighed dramatically. "Unfortunately, your new parole officer."
A menu popped up in front of me:
[AFTERLIFE OPTIONS]
Reincarnation (Standard Package: Human, No Memories)
Eternal Bliss (Warning: May Contain Excessive Harp Music)
Divine Retry (NEW! Includes Cheat Skills & A Sentient Motorcycle)
Zara grinned. Her teeth were slightly too sharp. "See that third one? That's my specialoffer."
I stared. "A... sentient motorcycle?"
"His name's Vroomba. He's an asshole." She leaned in. "Here's the deal. My idiot brother, Kael—God of Chaos, certified dumbass—accidentally made your life way harder than it should've been."
Another menu:
[CHEAT SKILLS]
Tinkerer's Intuition (Understand/hack any tech)
System Interface (Because who doesn't love stats?)
Divine Pranks Immunity (Mostly works)
I hesitated. "Why me?"
Zara's grin turned wicked. "Because I lovewatching mortals break the rules. And you, Finn Carter, are exceptionally breakable."
A giant ACCEPT? button flashed.
Before I could decide, Zara snapped her fingers.
The void ripped open, revealing a neon-drenched city where skyscrapers pulsed with holographic ads. Somewhere below, a motorcycle revved—and somehow, it sounded sarcastic.
"Oh, right," Zara said. "Kael gets to prank you. Nothing major! Just, y'know... spontaneous karaoke battles. Your hair turning pink. Maybe a rogue AI or two."
I opened my mouth—
"Great!" She slammed her palm on ACCEPT.
The world dissolved into screaming light.
SYSTEM ALERT: Welcome, Player Finn. Tutorial Complete. Now the real glitch begins.